I used to frequent Jimmy John's but will be moving on after hearing that the founder Jimmy John Liautaud is a teabagger that doesn't mind ruining his company.
The following interview from Fox Business took place on October 15th. I consider myself an almost manic follower of the news. I don't know how I could have missed this but it definitely didn't get the coverage it deserved.
IAUTAUD: Well, a lot of our -- 80 percent of our expansions come from current franchisees. So they have been in the system for a long time.So add Jimmy John's to the list of right-wing establishments you should think twice about before going to.And with a system that is as healthy and viable as ours, that is what happens over time. It's exponential growth. But what's happening right now with the future, I have -- a lot of these franchisees, they're holding back because they're not sure what is really going to happen with ObamaCare, if in fact...
CAVUTO: You have a lot of hourly workers, right?
LIAUTAUD: About 60,000.
CAVUTO: So, like Darden, you heard what they're doing. They're going to cut down on those hours, workers, so they're not hooked into that overtime dilemma or the health care automatic provide...
LIAUTAUD: Exactly.
CAVUTO: Are you going to do the same thing?
LIAUTAUD: We have to do the same thing.
CAVUTO: Really?
LIAUTAUD: Yes. We're not doing it now, but we have to bring them down to 28 hours. Yes, we have to do that. There's no other way we can survive it, because we think it will cost us 50 cents a sandwich. That';s just the actual cost.
CAVUTO: Really?
LIAUTAUD: Yes, we do.
CAVUTO: What about just paying the penalty?
A lot of your competitors say, you know, down the road, Neil, we could see paying the penalty and sucking it up.
LIAUTAUD: Well, if you have 40 or 50 employees at a restaurant, and the penalty is $2,000, and you're going to pay $80,000 or $100,000 penalty, there goes the profit in your restaurant.
So it's very expensive to just pay the penalty as well. And I think we have to manage around it.
Contact Info:@JimmyJohns Jimmy John's Corporate Headquarters Champaign, IL 61820 Phone 217-356-9900 Fax 217-359-2956